by Adam Steel
‘WA YAH SAY?’ he demanded.
Marko started to convulse. His eyes were rolling backwards, and foam was spilling from the corner of his mouth. He swayed back and forth, like a mast of a ship caught in a storm at sea.
“The crashing red waters consumed him, crashing downwards over and over. He was drowning. He opened his mouth to scream and the water rushed in. It was rich and sickly, thick like blood. It was his blood. He could taste its iron rusty flavour. Another wave smashed down enveloping him. His battered body was tossed in the waves of the storm.”
Marko’s back arched, and he vomited a stream of dark blood and when he opened his eyes, they were tinted pink: unseeing. They bulged out from their sockets and his face was contorted in pain. Flecks of red began to appear upon his huge, bug eyes. He screeched a horrible, twisted, ‘gargling’ sound.
The room froze. Nobody dared move.
Jack looked frantically to the door. He was thinking that if Marko died, Jomo was likely to kill the entire room in his fury. His fingers itched for the handle of his old gun but Kojo still had it.
Jomo grabbed Louis around his throat in a vice-like grip and shook him like a rag doll.
‘CHA! YAU TOLD ME IT WAS DUN MON! READY! DAT'S WA YAH SAY! WA YA DUN?’ he screamed, tightening his grip.
He spun Louis around to see the tortured Marko.
‘Almost,’ Louise said. His voice was strangled. ‘Close Boss…Is fine for most…most of our friends…’ he croaked in a tiny wavering voice.
Marko stared out through red eyes.
“Above the storm something was coming. He could see it when he was tossed above the waves. It was huge a great wall of red, a curtain of water that fell from the sky it filled his vision. It roared impossibly loud. The blood-water filled his lungs as he disappeared once more below the raging waters. The pressure was intense, he felt it crush his bones.”
Marko doubled up: his eyelids forcing his straining eyes back into his head. Jack could see him swallowing, over and over: his throat working instinctively for air. Marko gulped back the blood he was coughing up.
It made Jack feel sick.
The veins in his muscles bulged, and his body struggled to contain the immense chemical reaction. He looked bigger – bursting at the seams, until Jack felt sure that he would explode in a hail of gore. Marko shook all over and twin blooded-lines drooled from both sides of his mouth, and from beneath his closed eyelids. It was the most horrific thing Jack had ever witnessed. He closed his eyes and prayed that Jomo would kill Louis, before the hellish formula could ever hit the streets. Jack knew that if it did, it would cause anarchy unprecedented since the Reckoning. Incensed with rage, Jomo forced Louis to his knees. His fingers tore into Louis’s reedy neck. Louis’s eyes were bulging, as Jomo slowly crushed his neck in an unrelenting grip. Louis tried to free himself from the towering vice. He had both of his hands around Jomo’s crushing fist. He was as helpless as a mouse fighting a snake.
‘MARKO DIES? - YAH DIE MOTHERFUCKER!’ Jomo raged.
Jomo drew a narrow stiletto from his waist with his free hand. He hovered it next to Louis’s ear, trying to steady his head. Jack stood paralysed – waiting for the outcome. In his mind, he went through the deities he could pray to for help. Unsatisfied when he exhausted the list, he abandoned the train of thought, and tried to convince himself that this was all some hideous booze fuelled nightmare.
Marko screamed across the room. It cut into Jack’s crawling flesh and chilled him to the bone. Marko twitched and his eyes flickered violently.
“The tidal wave struck with impossible force. The entire world went red. He felt himself fall away. There was no more air, no sense of anything, only the red water. It was deep. It lasted forever. He sank into its crimson depths away from the light.”
In the audience chamber, Marko crashed into the banquet table sending piles of credits fluttering across the room. Some of them landed in the pools of his blood on the floor. The paper turned red as if it were drinking the dark liquid. The glasses and bottles on the table rocked – threatening to spill over. The clinking glasses let out a chimed symphony to Marko’s fall. Marko slumped backwards, falling to the floor. He flopped back, to end up lying flat out on his back surrounded by the bloodied notes. He let out a shuddering ‘gasp’.
Jomo paused and looked at his brother (who was lying flat out and looked ‘very dead’). Jomo’s expression was unreadable. It was as if he couldn’t quite register what he was seeing. His hand was still fixed firmly around Louis throat. Small rivets of blood pooled up around his fingertips. The stiletto hovered in mid-air, quivering inches from Louis’s ear.
The others in the room held their breath; too petrified to ask, “Was he was dead?”
Jack thought that it seemed pretty fucking obvious that he was dead.
Their terrified eyes darted to, and from, Jomo and Marko.
Marko lay silent and still.
“The water was gone. It was dark. Above something glimmered. All around were small smooth polished objects, he was swimming in them. They were cool to the touch. It felt good against his naked skin. He must have been swimming in the world's biggest box of marbles. It was splendid. Curious, he reached upwards to feel more of them, they flowed down through his fingers. His body seemed to float. Hand over hand he crawled through the strange objects towards the light. It shone downwards through a thousand million tiny red glass spheres. It was effortless swimming up through them. He could do anything. He breathed the coolest mountain air through the sea of glass and had the strength of a hundred men. His hand broke the surface as he pulled himself up. He floated torso high in a vast ocean of tiny smooth rubies. They glittered. Above there was no sky, just an endless void of red stars. The source of light shining down into the sea was not apparent but it no longer mattered. He laughed at the cosmos of his mind. Its glory threatened to shatter his sanity as the neurones of his mind were overloaded with the splendour of the impossible image.
Red waves of rubies washed against the shore of an island in the ruby sea. It was made of light. He smiled as he swam towards it.”
Marko slowly, very slowly, stirred. His chest began to rise and fall in slow deep movements. His eyes flickered (and when he opened them) they looked straight ahead, glazed. A huge grin split his blood stained lips.
‘Mi...bredda,’ he managed.
His voice was distant: a cat-like purr of pleasure.
Jomo raised an eyebrow, ‘Marko?’ he quizzed.
‘Is...is perfection,’ Marko’s said hoarsely.
Jack gasped with relief as he ventured a peek.
The tension in the room cut the air like a knife. Jomo released Louis, who fell to the ground in a gibbering heap. He was kneeling on his hands and knees and rubbing his bruised throat frantically. Discarding Louis like an unwanted insect, Jomo swept across the room and knelt alongside Marko clasping his head in his hands.
‘Marko…talk fi me mi bredda…Speak.’
Marko laughed, licking the blood from his lips. He sat up and spread his arms wide in a strange priestly fashion.
‘Jomo…Jomo…Yuh 'ave created paradise mi bredda!’ he laughed.
Louis scuttled behind Marko helping him get to his feet muttering something incomprehensible in a meek voice. Marko hit him hard across his back (and leaving one hand gripping his stick-insect shoulder) he grinned at him. Louise could feel Marko’s fingers digging into his bony shoulder. It hurt. He could also feel the heat from Marko’s body caused by the reaction to the drug.
‘Is di big – great mon – paradise. Is genius Louis!’ Marko said in a hoarse, but enthusiastic voice, and then he dug his fingers deeper into his thin flesh.
Louise winced in pain and forced a smile. Jomo left Marko raving and turned back to Louis.
‘Tis’ only dat mi bredda is pleased yah live fucker,’ he spat.
He retrieved his discarded stiletto and ‘vanished’ it somewhere down by his waist. Jomo released his grip on Louise and shoved him hard. The ro
om visibly relaxed and the tension starting to dissipate. The two girls that had been hiding behind Jomo’s chair peeked out.
‘Is good….good boss…merci,’ Louis gibbered. ‘Is fine for most…yes-yes most…but some, nasty reactions have seen…Oui…Comme des demons.’
Jack swallowed hard. “Nasty” reactions? No shit. At least now Red-Man was certain to abandon the lethal formula.
Jomo cast an eye over Marko, who was dancing in wide circles around the room and laughing: seemingly oblivious. Jomo sidled up to Louis and said quite calmly (as though previous scene had not even taken place).
‘Explain dese problems fi mi.’
Louis straightened up and clutching at his bruised throat, he grovelled.
‘Just some…some people who aren’t used to your sunshine greatness. It has bad effect. La folie crier…they go mad, crazy in brain, like possessed, by all the devils in hell!’
Jomo paused, considering. A slow, grim smile formed across his face.
‘I’ll fix it, soon…soon Boss. Faire bien reel!’ Louis offered, backing away, bowing profusely.
Jomo halted Louis as he tried to scuttle off.
‘Not suh fast mon.’ Got mi another plan fa dat.’
Jomo leaned in to whisper instructions into Louis’s ear and Louis nodded enthusiastically as he absorbed the information before disappearing into one of the back rooms behind Jomo’s chair. Jacks heart sank. The conversation certainly didn’t look like Red-Man had any plans to ditch the new formulae. I have to get out of here, he thought. This is madness. He certainly didn’t want to stick around to see what the ‘crime lord’ might have in store for his ‘new toy.’
Jomo turned his attentions back to Marko, who had taken a seat at the banquet table, and was enjoying the attention of his girls. He took a seat opposite (sampling morsels from the table) and waited. The girls were slowly coaxing Marko back to a glazed reality with their erotic attentions.
‘Ahh…tis gud fi be back a di sun again bredda,’ Marko finally said.
Marko’s power of speech had returned.
‘Afte dat shithole mi bin in mon…wit dose CURE mothefuckers.’
Marko flexed his burnt fingers. Jomo nodded and helped himself to a tall glass of red wine from the table. His composure was now restored.
Jack shuffled his feet in the corner. Small pools of blood covered the floor around where Marko had fallen and Credits lay strewn about the chamber. His nerve finally broke and he coughed slightly for attention.
Jomo took the hint.
‘Marko, come mi bredda,’ he said, rising to his feet with the glass in hand.
‘Wi hab business to akkend too, an', I hab one more surprise fa yah mon.’
Marko got up and walked alongside his brother. The girls slid off him as he did so and made small, disappointed, whining noises. As they walked past Jack, Marko smiled at him. The lines of drying blood that run from his mouth, made him look like a vampire. His eyes were pink and looked hungry.
'Walk good,' he said as he passed.
Jack had to try very hard to prevent his bowels from empting.
Jomo led Marko out of the audience chamber, and down the passage. They stopped outside of a barricaded door. Several loud bangs (followed by muffled screams) came from the other side.
‘A gift mi bredda,’ he said, sounding very pleased with himself. He pushed the door open to reveal the scene inside.
Kojo was standing in the room brandishing a smoking, stun-baton. The low whine (which was emanating from the weapon) indicated it was recharging. A large woman was strapped into a chair in the middle of the room. Joe was hovering over her. The chair was bolted to the floor in several places. The woman’s mouth was gagged with a filthy rag, and her eyes blazed with fury. Marko laughed in uproar, and clapped his hands together hard, as he took in the scene of warden Clarke, trussed up like a Christmas turkey. Parts of her uniform were torn and smoking and her skin was badly burned in several places. She was naked from the waist downwards. Dried blood, matted her hair, while two rows of teeth (some of them missing) clamped down in a perpetual snarl over the gag.
Marko applauded loudly, 'Mi bredda. Yah never cease fi pleze mon!' he cried.
Jomo crossed his arms and watched as Marko entered the room and relieved Joe of the stun-baton. Marko gripped the shaft of the weapon and twirled it thoughtfully as he had seen Clarke do many times on patrol. It felt good in his hands.
‘I’m gonna enjoy dis – bitch,’ he spoke calmly to Clarke. ‘Revenge a surely a sweet ting….Heh?’
Her eyes blazed pure hate in response. Marko paused momentarily for effect and then rammed the stun-baton (full force) into her groin and jammed his finger down hard on the trigger. Clarke’s eyes squeezed tightly shut. She squealed like a stuck pig through her snorting nostrils as a cascade of blue, electric bolts, and sparks, exploded from the end of the weapon.
The high from Louis’s new formulae allowed Marko to experience every last detail of Clarke’s suffering. The seconds stretched into hours in his mind. He could see every spark form at the end of the weapon before it leapt to the exposed flesh, and he could see each of the hairs of her groin slowly curl and turn black, before fading to ash. He could see blisters rising and exploding into tiny volcanoes of flesh and blood. Her screams echoed across the paradise in his mind. It was a sweet music.
Marko turned back to his brother in the doorway. His face was an expression of ecstasy. He kept the weapon in place, running it’s charge down.
‘IS A SHOKKIN EXPERIENCE MON!’ he jeered, as a plume of smoke rose from Clarke’s burning lap.
Jomo and Kojo laughed, and clapped, at the spectacle, as if it were a comedy performance.
Marko finally withdrew the weapon when its charge had emptied. It left an unpleasant odour of burnt flesh in the air. Marko leaned in towards Clarke.
'Nah worries Babylon. Mi hab dat heffect on gurlz,' he said, in a mocking tone.
Clarke flailed against the restraints as Marko readied a finishing blow.
‘Wait bredda.’
Jomo’s intervention stopped Marko’s hand before the blow could be delivered and Marko looked up, irritated. Louis had joined them and was standing by the door. In his hand was a large hypodermic needle which contained a dark, red, liquid.
‘‘Wait mon. Wi hab a liddle surprise fa our friends at di CURE,’ Jomo reiterated.
Marko began to lower the weapon as the idea caught on. He grinned sadistically. Jomo gestured towards the smoke that was drifting off Clarke’s clothing.
‘Get our guest ready fi go mon. She’ll be takin' a trip,’ he directed at Kojo.
Kojo nodded, and shoved a black bag over Clarke’s head. He followed it up with a heavy punch to her face and she went as limp as a rag doll.
Marko and Jomo made their exit, laughing.
Liquid Sun Bar: Sector Seven
Later that night
Jack pulled the iron door of Red-Man’s catacombs open, and stepped out into the Liquid Sun Bar. Jomo’s reunion with his brother Marko had been precarious thanks to Louis’s ‘New-and-Improved' Apexir formula. Jack thought that he would never be able to erase the horrendous scenes from his mind and he shuddered at what Red-Man might do with the drug. He had already seen Louis with a syringe of the lethal liquid. He had seen him checking the pulse, and bodyweight, of a large, unconscious women in one of the side rooms. He suspected that she would be Louis’s next test subject. He had heard her screams through the audience chamber door as Marko applied his ‘not-so-tender’ ministrations. He tried to shut them out.
Jomo had returned from his entertainment with Marko, and had dealt with him. He was in the clear for now. Jomo would let him live, but the deal was done, and Jomo had it made clear that his welcome had run out. Jack was happy to escape with all his body parts intact. He was glad to be out of the place, and out of the gang for good. Their methods made him feel sick to the stomach (and considering what he ate and drank) that was a feat in itself.
He had just
one more task to attend to before he could disappear for good. He was thinking that maybe he would go up to Eden, or perhaps even to Sanctuary, if the masons ever managed to speed its construction. Hell, if things got much worse he might emigrate, he thought. He looked around the bar for his meet. He spotted him hidden in the furthest corner of the bar sitting underneath a plastic palm tree. His meet was hunched over a bottle of beer brooding silently. A dying cigarette hung in one hand – the other lay limp across the stained table. The man he was meeting was well built and wore an old, ill-fitting T-shirt. The faded design showed an old cartoon character. It was a black duck (with an insane grin) who was wielding a huge stick of dynamite. The words: I’m Desthpicable ran across the front in lively red text. The man wore a cap to match his duck T-Shirt. Underneath the cap, short ginger hair escaped from the sides, and a pair of dark, tired eyes, stared into space. They were deep in thought.
Jack turned from the man and ordered a drink of double bourbon with extra bourbon. It was his favourite. He felt like he had earned it. Taking up the drink, Jack crossed the bar and went over to the man in the silly T-Shirt. When he got closer, he could see numerous cuts and abrasions across the man’s rugged face. Jack was thinking that he looked like he had been dragged along behind a truck. He was not surprised, because Marko had the same thing, only his dark skin hid it better.
The man lifted his head to meet his look as he approached.
‘You must be Jack,’ he said, seeming unimpressed.
Jack nodded and sat down without being invited. He placed his hat in the middle of the table like a bargaining chip.
It sat there: dominating.
‘And you must be Max,’ he replied.
The two men sized each other up. Max smirked under the cartoon embellished cap. His disguise wasn’t ideal but he was grateful for any help that Jomo’s gang had given him. They had swung by a safe-house to clean up, and collect the change of clothing, before they arrived at Red-Man’s Lair. He had been able to clean off the worst of the dust and blood off himself. They had been thrown a few makeshift, civilian clothes, from a pile which they kept, before they had been brought to Red-Man’s Lair, for Marko’s reunion with his brother.